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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27741382">Interdict</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nym/pseuds/Nym'>Nym</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Madness For Two [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Character Study, F/M, Unreliable Narrator, masterversary, telepathic hanky-panky</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 19:27:39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>11,947</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27741382</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nym/pseuds/Nym</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor calls it 'the interdict'—the only time this folie à deux with the Master can be anything but poison. She needs him whether she can admit it or not.</p><p>The Master doesn't call it anything, but the Cyberium is slowly killing him and he needs the Doctor's help. Trouble is, he doesn't want to be saved—least of all by her.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>The Doctor &amp; The Master (Doctor Who), The Doctor/The Master (Doctor Who), Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Madness For Two [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2070453</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>58</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Loving the Master's 50th anniversary? Check out my growing <a href="https://master.fannishly.com"> <strong>collection of Master-themed fanfic recs</strong></a>. I'll be adding to it during 2021.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There’s this game you play with each other, only neither of you know all the rules any more. You’ve forgotten how to recognise when you’re playing, so sometimes you get played. Lately, you’ve both been known to smash the board and call it a win.</p><p>There’s no stopping it. You’ve tried, really hard, and you should’ve known better, except you never do because you can’t stop hoping that one day, one day, this could end without one of you losing.</p><p>So what is this?  A thoughtful pause between moves?  A reset? Respite? Or maybe just pure spite. That seems to be most of it, this time around. More a grudge-match than a game. Might as well be a fist-fight in the dirt for all the good it does, for all it resolves.</p><p>What’s he doing here? What’s he <em>doing?</em></p><p>The Master watches you across a crowded room, dark eyes willing you to make the first move—except he’s done that just by coming here, hasn’t he? This is a human place with human things. Chat. Nibbles. Bubbly drinks in impractical glasses. It’s not meant for either of you.</p><p>When you look away to buy yourself a second to think, the Master starts eyeing up the available pawns.</p><p>You’re not having that.  Before the Master can insert himself into the nearest chattering group and disarm them with that lying smile, you’re standing in his path.</p><p>Eyebrows raised, he rakes you over with his eyes—down your body and then up again, finishing with a grin that bares his teeth and sets your hearts thundering.</p><p>“Time out,” he says, backing it up with a hand gesture. “I just want a word. If that’s okay?” That soft voice, so reasonable, so kind. He’s mocking you with your own memories of before you knew the truth; when you thought you knew him, trusted him, when you <em>liked</em> him, and he was someone else all along. A cheap move, a trick shot. A hole in one. “Quick chat?”</p><p>You and him.  Worlds revolve around you and him.  Universes.  But you stand here, and nobody gives you a second glance.  The people here don’t know they’re in danger because neither of you looks dangerous.  Not this time. There’ve been times when you walked into a room, either of you, and hackles rose; empires wobbled; armies fled.  Not now.  You don’t look out of place here among the drinks and nibbles, the communal act of humanity that you get after every wedding, every funeral. (Which one was this again?)</p><p>It’ll be everyone’s funeral if you don’t get him out of here.  The Master doesn’t see anything disproportionate about killing the lot of them just to get you alone.</p><p>“Fine.” You walk out.  Your friends don’t notice anything wrong, don’t try to follow. This time around, the Master is better at passing for human than you’ll ever be.  He might even have fooled you—again—but lets you see right through the disguise.</p><p>What’s that about?</p><p>You don’t feel safer outside the building. A few dozen human beings inside there—a few billion of them out here. Same difference. You never know what the scale is going to be the next time you face him. Cruelty can be a whisper, a laugh. A world burning. You want him in the TARDIS where you can contain this, so you stride off into the city streets, dodging the slow commuter traffic of a biting winter’s evening.  You don’t look back—don’t have to look to know that he’s following, and you only have to know him to guess how long he’ll tail after you before his fuse blows.  Long enough to turn into a side street, then an alleyway—lead him into dark streets where there are fewer targets of opportunity.  When he’s focused on you, if you’re very lucky, he’ll forget about the Earth.</p><p>He grabs your upper arm eight steps into the alleyway, spinning you around.  You expected it, predicted it almost to the heartsbeat, but your response is mindless, visceral—a wrench to free yourself then a shove against his shoulder with your palm, forcing him back a step. It pushes you backwards too, staggering under the momentum of your own outrage. The two of you glare, hard, across five feet of litter-strewn tarmac.</p><p>When he laughs, your hands curl into fists at your sides.</p><p>“Thought you’d be more touchy-feely this time.” The Master’s hands hover at chest height, indecently cupping two handfuls of empty air. “Suits you, by the way. I never said.” You throw a pitying look. He grins back shamelessly, licking his lips. “We can play rough. That’s fine.  Better than fine. Actually, I could do that all day.  Let me clear my diary.”</p><p>You just wait until he stops talking, wondering what happened to the composure you used to admire in him—the studied discipline of mind that you only hoped to emulate one day.  Now look at him.  Look at you.</p><p>“What is this?” You spread your hands at your sides. “Haven’t you burnt enough bridges for one lifetime?”</p><p>“This,” he says, jiggling on his heels, “is your one chance.”</p><p>“Oh, yeah?” You’ve lost count of all those.</p><p>“One body, one chance.  One chance per body. Seems about right, doesn’t it? I’m trying to be fair here—room for negotiation. I’m thinking... a locked room.  Like, like a <em>vault.</em> I’ll stay put, and you’ll... Mm... <em>Fix me</em>.”</p><p>You don’t know what this is. Oblique mockery, sick sentimentality.  Proof that his brilliant mind has cracked beyond the semblance of any rational discourse. Pure perversity on his part. Or it might just be cruelty. Sometimes it’s that. It’s just meant to hurt because he knows no-one else can cut you so deeply and thinks someone should. Doesn’t he get bored? You do.</p><p>“Tried that.” You turn away and start walking again. “Didn’t take.”</p><p>“Are you sure?”</p><p>You don’t miss a step.</p><p>“Really sure.” Your hope died in that certainty. You died without hope. You don’t forgive him for that.</p><p>He doesn’t immediately follow—wasn’t expecting you to just turn your back on whatever this is. It’s probably a game, still <em>the game</em>, but you don’t enjoy it any more.  You did.  For too long, you really did.</p><p>“Giving up on me?” he calls after you, his voice swallowed up in the damp acoustics of the narrow street. “Really?” He sounds annoyed, startled, and it’s your turn to smile. It’s not a nice smile, and this face you’re wearing was <em>made</em> for smiling with—properly smiling. You wipe this one away fast, catching yourself playing the old game despite yourself.</p><p>He’s never worked out why you can’t afford to do anything, any more, without clinging to your rules.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Master’s waiting outside your TARDIS, arms folded and frowning.</p><p>“Now what?”</p><p>“We haven’t finished our chat.”</p><p>“Finish it by yourself. You’ll be much happier filling in my bits with what you want to hear.”</p><p>The TARDIS key slips from your fingers when he shoves you against the doors, hand at your throat, and kisses you. Salt-sweat-tasting lips hard against yours and the scratch of his beard on your chin. You don’t even dignify it by resisting—you simply wait until he stops doing it, those blunt fingers retreating from your neck to curl into a fist that wavers just short of touching your skin again. Just short of trying something else, something he’d eventually regret. Probably. Bewilderment and terror are naked in his eyes, just for a moment, before the blazing rage burns them away. His breath comes staccato, fever-hot against your cheek.</p><p>“You can do that by yourself ‘n’ all. Don’t do that again.” You collect your key from beside his feet. “I’ll do you a lift off of the Earth, though, how about that?”</p><p>“I don’t need a lift,” he snarls, low-voiced and urgent. “This isn’t how it goes. Not when I come to you. Not when I ask for your—” A grunt, a grimace. He backs off, holding up both his hands in protest at his own phrasing. Wrenches his head to one side, hiding his face from you and your expression from himself. The pulses throb at his temple, sickly sweat slicking his hair to his forehead. He laughs under his breath, bitter as eternity, then turns his back on you—walks a few paces from the TARDIS and runs his hand through his hair.</p><p>Your point. Or his own-goal. If he thinks he can provoke a reaction from you now, like this, after <em>everything</em>, he really hasn’t been paying attention.</p><p>There’s a weight inside you, so massive it holds down the pain of Gallifrey. That’s how you can look the Master in the eye. Hear him out. Play the guessing games, endure the smarmy, selfish stupidity and the crass jokes. That dead weight sitting on your grief keeps it from rising up all at once; keeps you from screaming in his face, your fingernails clawing for his eyes while your mind tears into his madness until he begs for pity.</p><p>You do pity him, the tragedy of him, the <em>waste</em> of him. But compassion? He makes that <em>so</em> hard, now.</p><p>“Ask me.” The catch in your voice reveals way more than you wanted. The Master looks over his shoulder, a sly smile edging towards glee at this fresh opening gambit. He takes a breath to say the first, worst thing that comes into his head. “I mean properly. <em>Ask</em> me. That’s what people do when they want something. They ask.”</p><p>He faces you, hooking two fingers beneath his collar and pulling it away from his skin, clearing his throat and swallowing convulsively. Drops his hands to his sides only to clasp them in front just a moment later, this new body of his ever-expressive. He’s never really still—like he’s stifled by the sensation of his own skin. Probably he is. It must be crowded in there.</p><p>“Do I kneel? One knee, or both? Or are we talking about an epistolic approach, here?” The Master begins patting his pockets. “I think I’ve got a—”</p><p>“You just <em>ask</em>.”</p><p>“Pretty please?” His brightest smile, all teeth, edged with brittle dismay. “Knobs on?”</p><p>You turn and unlock the TARDIS. You step inside and start to close the door behind you, not looking back.</p><p>“Doctor.” Quietly. Boot-scuff on the pavement, closing the distance, then stopping. “Please may I come in?”</p><p>For a minute there, you thought he’d called your bluff.</p><p>For a minute there, you weren’t sure you were bluffing.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>TARDIS energy pulses softly beneath your hands as you rest them on the edge of the console to lean your weight for a moment. There’s always a welcome here, wrapping you in the consolation of home.</p><p>After a minute you reach out, eyes closed, knowing your ship better than you know your own body, and seal the outer doors. He’s behind you, you know that, but until you turn and look, it’s like it isn’t fixed. You can hang on to fragments of denial for a few breaths longer before you turn and make him real.</p><p>“All right.” You lever yourself away from the console and look the Master in the eye. He nods scant acknowledgement, no less at odds with this truce than you are. “Let’s have it.”</p><p>He shrugs—the studied parody of an easy gesture, but it’s not one. He’s mastering his own body from moment to moment, but there’s a visible lag between intention and action. Nearly too late, he remembers to smile. Predatory smile, dabbling in spite but flirting with gentle, so you recognise O in there. He’s never letting you forget that one.</p><p>“I just wanted to catch up. It’s been a while.”</p><p>Smashed all the toys, broke all his playmates, so now he’s bored. That sounds about right, about like always, but there’s more. He used to be a broken record, the same one-note tricks over and over, but now his chaos is polyphonic. A symphony of rage shuddering on a discord.</p><p>“Hurts, does it?” The film of sweat. The way he holds himself in the microsecond before he strikes a pose or makes a gesture—you can <em>see</em> him not doubling over in agony or clawing at his skin. The way he breathes, a battle inside him. “Need my help?”</p><p>The Master blinks. Ignores your question.</p><p>“Are you? Giving up on me?”</p><p>You sigh.</p><p>“What do you want me to say? Yes, or no? Which one makes you happy?” It’s going through the motions of exasperation. You don’t feel it—just that dead weight on your hearts. “You want to go back inside the Vault? I’ll do that. You want the Cyberium out of you? I can probably do that. Let’s have a look.” You raise both hands, offering them up to his face. He only has to close the distance between you—stand there and let you do this thing, passive, practically your victim. That’s the role he likes to play, these days, with his grand unified theory of blame-the-Doctor-for-everything.</p><p>He does come closer, a slow saunter then a mock cringe of mistrust (gasp! puppy-dog eyes, be gentle with me) before he moves his face into position between your outstretched fingers. Tilts his head left and then right, eyes half closing, guiding your fingertips against the pressure-points like a cat nudging for the perfect scratch.</p><p>You grit your teeth. He flashes his in an insolent smile, then nods.</p><p>“Go on then. Peepshow is free. Full admittance’ll cost you.”</p><p>It’s frightening how easy this is between you. You can’t help thinking that it’s more than random, more than chance, the way you always fit each other after you both regenerate. Your lives might be at odds, and your hearts, but your minds still fit like they were made in one piece then snapped in two with a clean break. You hardly even have to try.</p><p>“Contact,” you mutter, because you need your rules. With him like this, with everything he’s shown you about yourself, you need to keep some solid ground beneath your feet.</p><p>“Whatever,” he chuckles, and it’s the soft voice again—the one that convinced you he was human for so long. One of the good ones. You <em>liked</em> O.</p><p>The Cyberium dances in him like a catastrophic lightning show—a thrashing livewire discharging defensive shocks down your telepathic pathways when you try to get anywhere near it. It’s grown <em>so</em> much bigger and stronger than when you let it inside you. And it’s completely insane.</p><p>The Master leans closer, slowly so as not to dislodge your hands.</p><p>“I hurt it,” he confesses in a whisper, holding your gaze. Eager to shock you. “I really, really hurt it.”</p><p>“But it’s a part of <em>you</em> now.”</p><p>Sometimes, when he startles you, you still catch yourself resorting to reason. You do know better.</p><p>“Details. Mm.” He ducks his head and whispers beside your cheek, “I showed you mine.” He cups your face between his palms in a mockery of tenderness; mind ghosting over your mind, looking for the way in. He’s still burning up, damp, the sickness evaporating off of him in a way that grounds you to the physical with horrid fascination. “How about it? Show me yours, Doctor.”</p><p>You stare past his head, at nothing. You lower your hands, shut him out, shut yourself down.</p><p>“I’ve got nothing you haven’t seen before.”</p><p>“Liar. I win. You told the first lie.” The Master rests his right index finger against your lips. His eyes gleam, celebrating the tiniest of victories as if he just won the universe. “That’s a rule, now.”</p><p>You force yourself not to wipe your hands down your coat and your face on your sleeve. You thought you’d be more touchy-feely this time around, too, if you’re honest; like there should’ve been an equal and opposite reaction against who you’ve just been—all prickly and Scottish and culpably alone in your old, old skin. There wasn’t. You miss Missy’s way of being around you—her cool poise, her slow cleverness in getting past your defences. Not this brute-force approach, crude and physical and so <em>beneath</em> you both.</p><p>“You’re dying.” You can taste the Cyberium in the sticky molecules of that fingerprint he’s left on your lips. It’s not too well, either. “It’s killing you.”</p><p>That ought to expose his terror, the cringing coward at the hearts of him, but all you get back is a lopsided, weary smile. Almost pitying, disappointed in you. It’s not bravado, he’s not faking—you can always see through that when he’s scared enough. This wry look on his face, this whole-body shrug of utter indifference, is for real. He’s dying, and he doesn’t even <em>care</em>.</p><p>When did that happen?</p><p>You’re startled into retreat, wanting space to think, to hide your face before it betrays you, but two steps backwards bring your backside up against the console. The Master takes the opening, closing the distance between you in three devouring strides so he can pin you there with his body weight. Before you can decide what to do about it, he’s reached behind you, worked the controls. Your TARDIS protests as he slips her out of phase with the now beyond the doors.</p><p>“No interruptions,” he murmurs.</p><p>You roll your eyes.</p><p>“I did lock it.” And throw a forcefield bubble around it, broadcasting a psionic warning to stay clear. Danger here. Danger to your friends, this planet you love. He’s already destroyed one home.</p><p>Hands splayed against his chest, you resist his weight. It only makes him laugh. His hearts falter beneath your palms, out of step, erratic.</p><p>“I’m not doing this,” you decide, then and there. You shift your weight and shove him off of you. He’s bulkier, broader in the shoulders, has you at the disadvantage against the console, but you’re not dying—not fighting your battles on more than one front. You win, the Master pretending to stumble dramatically backwards from your onslaught, still laughing as he rights himself a few paces away and folds his arms.</p><p>Suddenly, his expression turns serious.</p><p>“Get real, love. We’re <em>always</em> doing this.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Time was, the two of you had better things to do. Conversation—remember that? The duel of rapier wit versus towering intellect?  Honour amongst renegades.  Still friends, almost.  You liked it.</p><p>You can’t quite remember when it turned to poison.</p><p>That was then, when the only thing you needed your tongue for was a sharp quip.</p><p>But you were always doing this.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>This is now. The Master’s mouth hungry against your throat, a kiss just shy of cannibalism leaving marks that you’ll be wearing for days. Your fist clutching a hank of his soft hair, pulling from the scalp, stopping just short of hurting him on purpose. You want to, every few seconds you want to, but this is your one chance. This is the only time it can be anything but poison between you, so you sweeten him with a moan, rolling your hips to excite him past hating this. He can forget—sometimes, for a little while—how much he hates you.</p><p>Hard up against a glowing pillar (pulsing anxious mauve), the Master plunges his hand down the front of your slacks and takes precisely nineteen strokes to bring you from a state of physiological need to one of glowing release, your visceral gratitude flowing like forgiveness over his fingertips. The bite-kisses move upward—your jaw, your left ear, and he whispers, close,</p><p>“God, you’re easy.  I hope you’re that easy when I fuck your brains out in a minute.”</p><p>“Who says that’s happening?” You haven’t laughed in... in it feels like forever. You do now. Release, air in your lungs, grasping at your one chance, holding the despair at bay. “Not sure I like the vocabulary.”</p><p>“Not a turn-on?” Lips brush your temple, nose pushes your hair out of the way. “The language of the bestial?”</p><p>“Don’t think so.”</p><p>“Pity.” The Master explores you, down there—maps you out, hair and folds and the brazen nub of nerve endings left over in your evolutionary blind-alley. He does it gently, curiously, the way you wish he’d do everything, so you rest your cheek against his and breathe a kiss near to his skin (yes, yes, good). It’s an invitation for his mouth to find yours and complete the circuit of need. Your kiss silences his ragged breathing; muffles your moan when he shoves his fingers up you and crooks them forward.</p><p>This time it’s his dry palm that brings you quickly over the edge, but it’s you swallowing his long groan of appreciation while your body’s quaking in his cupped hand.  He loves this, affecting you on this level, enough that he doesn’t need to make it adversarial (much).</p><p>There’s a silver-mercury blaze in his eyes when you part. You don’t let yourself recoil, though you learn that you hate sharing him with anything. Lazy-lidded eyes take in your features, your responsive state and your grateful acquiescence. He bites the tip of his tongue and looks you in the eye as he withdraws his hand from your trousers.</p><p>“I’m going down there, now,” he advises, poker-faced, finger pointing. Like he's talking about repairs below decks. “Need to check the lie of the land. Make a thorough survey of the terrain.”</p><p>“I’m confident you can find the optimal point of entry.”</p><p>He laughs and drops on one knee.</p><p>You miss this. Him. You and him, being like this. So much.  But that’s why. When he asks, when you ask, there’s this rule.  Your interdict, inviolate (more or less). This is why. So that there’s one last bridge not burning.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Unstoppable force, immovable object. That’s what it’s like, you and him (you and her), <em>fucking—</em>a nonsense paradoxical collision of bodies, meeting somewhere in the realm of the impossible. Proof of nothing except that you can’t keep away.</p><p>You’re always doing this.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Yes, it’s another game. You never sketched out any real rules. It just happened on a tipping-point, somewhen; words running dry, rage molten-hot, a scream neither of you could utter. Then mouths dragging the truth out in kisses and groans. It worked. It still works.</p><p>You wish it didn’t—that having this primal compromise didn’t make you feel so <em>alive</em>.</p><p>He pushes you hard, flirting with violence on the cutting edge of his catharsis, but never quite crossing the line. Fingernails, teeth, marking your skin, pinching your privates; positioning you with rough hands until you’ve tried it every-which-way with him on top, as if your body is some sort of novelty to him. (His is to you. Fits you the way your minds fit. Fills you like you were made for it. Bit worrying.) He pins you on your back, on a pile of discarded clothing, and plasters himself to your flesh; greedy shoving between your bent knees—fast, frantic, demon-driven, wrenching himself to climax after climax and you with him.</p><p>You’re easily winning on goals by the time he falters in the face of his own diminishing returns. A dissatisfied grimace erases the mask of fierce concentration the next time he comes—a shake of the head, face turned away from yours, back arched in the throes of an orgasm that looks more like torture than any sort of relief.</p><p>You aren’t surprised. He can only have his own way for so long before he gets bored with it. He never learns that.</p><p>The Master blows out his cheeks, breathing hard as a grin creeps across his features. A laugh, more of a snort, all exasperation tinged with fatigue.</p><p>“Your go.”</p><p>“I think you need a lie-down.”</p><p>“Shut up.”</p><p>“I wasn’t finished, yet, by the way. Thanks for asking.”</p><p>“Shut up.”</p><p>“Problems?” This face, your face, it’s the best one ever for selling an innocent look. You can even infuriate yourself, looking in a mirror. “Need a hand?”</p><p>“Really shut up.” But he’s grinning, and you can’t see the demons dancing there. He flops down beside you, possessing you with one leg flung across both of yours, one hand clamping matter-of-factly over your right breast. He doesn’t quite rest his head on your shoulder. There are limits.</p><p>You hesitate, considering limits, then bury your fingers in his hair. That small sensation, a soft tickle, the uneasy heat of him beneath your palm, his <em>stillness</em> as he momentarily chooses to find you restful company... You swallow. This brings tears to your eyes, sharp, distorting the pulsing lights above you into a supernova.</p><p>You press your lips together and keep your eyes shut tight until you’re sure the tears aren’t going to fall.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter 8</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Master is a problem you should’ve dealt with lifetimes ago. It’s not like there aren’t ways, merciful ways, to contain him. It’s not like there aren’t reasons—great reasons—to stop him from spreading chaos and stop him doing himself this endless, stupid harm. So many long nights, you’ve almost convinced yourself it would be kind to put him out of everyone’s misery.</p><p>“Show me.” Your fingers curl against his scalp, your mind brushing his in invitation. Your voice is soft for him, your system awash with endorphins and pure temptation. Spills out of you sounding like tenderness. “Show me what’s up.”</p><p>“Hmm...” The Master extends a forefinger, slowly tracing the curve of your breast upward to your shoulder and then down the sweep of your collar bone and up the other side. You almost don’t shiver when his fingers find their way to the carotid pulses, your hearts-haven. “Nnnno. Shan’t.”</p><p>What?</p><p>“Why else did you come here?”</p><p>“It’d been a while? I’ll tell you something, though.” You glance down, seduced by a hesitation in his voice, just as he lifts his head and directs a nasty, knowing smirk your way. <em>Gotcha!</em> “O didn’t get out much.”</p><p>You’ve tipped him off you and scrambled to your feet before he’s finished talking. It’s the sort of kneejerk stupidity he loves to drag out of you; that you try your hardest not to let him. After Gallifrey, in the numbness of it, you weren’t sure you had any raw nerves left for him to twang; thought you were safe(ish) bringing him anywhere near your hearts. The interdict never runs to words, though. There might be things you can’t do to each other, so there can be a next time, but taunts and barbs are fair game.</p><p>This one sticks in you like a poisoned splinter because it’s petty, small enough to dodge your defences, and because you <em>fell</em> for it. Just for a second there, you fell for it again.</p><p>The Master sprawls on his back beside your TARDIS console, naked and shamelessly pleased with himself.</p><p>You snatch your coat from the floor and pull it round you, walking quickly away.</p><p>It’s not that you’re bothered you might say something you’ll regret. It’s just better if he never sees this look on your face.</p><p>He’d never stop running.</p><p>“Half time?” he calls after you, like an afterthought. “Mine’s a splash of milk, thanks. No sugar!”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Chapter 9</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>You don’t leave him unsupervised for long—just long enough to clean up, and so you can go back wearing something warmer than just your coat and your dignity. Besides, there’s his voice in your head while you’re under the shower: <em>Am I your prisoner?</em></p><p>No, he’s not, but you shut him out hard and don’t answer. Don’t picture those quick hands all over the controls, experimenting with his options. Instead, you reach out to the TARDIS, gathering your sense of her diffuse presence into yourself. (Think you can’t hug a ship? You can work out how to do anything if you live long enough.)</p><p>Your TARDIS illuminates the floor beneath your bare footsteps, warm yellow lights keeping pace with you, accompanying you on the walk back to face him. You have to smile, rest your hand on the wall for a few seconds.</p><p>“He won’t stay long,” you promise, under your breath. “Watch yourself.”</p><p>The Master is sitting on the step beneath the door you left by, elbows on his knees, fingers steepled and fingertips tapping against his mouth. Looks as if he started getting dressed and then forgot—untucked shirt open over his trousers.</p><p>You sit next to him and wait to see what he’ll do with silence. Usually, you’d win at this, at keeping still and waiting, but you’re restless, so when he doesn’t speak, you can’t help yourself.</p><p>“You weren’t serious, were you? That once-per-lifetime stuff?”</p><p>“Maybe.” His expression doesn’t change. His eyes remain unfocused. “Can you fix this, Doctor?” He parts his hands. Lets them fall to rest limply in front of him, then throws back his head with a groan, a shout of frustration, and drags his palms down his face as he straightens up. “You were always trying to remake me in your own image. At least now, I know why. Not the Vault. Can’t do that again.” A tight shake of the head, lips twisting. Revulsion constricts his throat, swallowing.</p><p>You follow on every breath as he stumbles, tries, his fragmentary words incapable of defining the agony you can see written in every atom of him.</p><p>“No.” Missy tried to change, and you failed, and now he’s asking for your help when he doesn’t even have the words for how much he hates you. “This you. This me. I don’t think either of us has the patience for that.”</p><p>He eyes you, red-rimmed, bloodshot, haunted by a suspicion that borders on terror. He catches some glimmer of mischief in your wry confession and laughs, hesitant; reluctant. Only when he lets the chuckles shake his shoulders, the sound modulated by utter exhaustion, do you feel his relief, like waves coming off him.</p><p>He was scared you’d lock him up again; that even if he fought you this time, he’d lose. But he came here anyway.</p><p>There it is—your compassion. Hurts, buoying up your hearts ’til there’s a big lump in your throat.</p><p>You never wanted to remake him in your image. You tried to show him where to find peace in this universe because even if you’re rubbish at that, you’re better at it than him—struggling in choppy waters while he dashes himself on the rocks and never <em>learns</em>. Your way isn’t the only way. You can admit that when you’re humbled, and he <em>has</em> humbled you by teaching you about yourself, even if you don’t dare let him know it. Let the universe know it, because you’ve got the nagging feeling that it’s laughing at you behind your back.</p><p>The Master bows his head, slowing his breathing. Mastering himself, breath by breath.</p><p>You chew your bottom lip for a second.</p><p>“Sickbay?”</p><p>He lifts his head, whiplash-fast, and spears you with resentment dredged out of self-defeat. The Cyberium flashes his dilated pupils silver—a mirror for his rage.</p><p>“No.” He grabs your wrist, dragging you to your feet. “Bed.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Chapter 10</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He can yield when the mood takes him, same as you can. You’d recognise that—the way he touches you, bites his lip and endures the pleasure of respite from himself when you kiss him. He can see the humour in letting you command his body—in either one of you doing that when your lives beyond these doors mean devastation and mistrust. He can play the lover and follow your lead; trust you far enough to give him a taste of the oblivion he craves. And in that moment, safety. You’ve held him there before—different faces, different stakes. You need it. He needs you.</p><p>This isn’t that.</p><p>You don’t recognise anything in the disconcerting landscape of this bedroom, including your own body. You fumble where you know you’re confident. You annoy him when you mean to make him sigh with a moment’s imposed sweetness. There’s no harmony, no fluidity—like someone transposed everything you know about him—you and him—into an unrecognisable and jarring key.</p><p>You don’t even get your coat off.</p><p>Eventually, flat on his back and bare to the waist, the Master delicately clears his throat. His new face can do innocent, too, masking the hate. It leaves him so beautiful that it hurts to look at him.</p><p>“Feeling under-equipped, love?”</p><p>“Shut up.” You plant your hand on his chest, keeping him and his smirk pinned to the mattress beneath you, but he’s unstoppable.</p><p>“There must be something you can shove up my arse.” He wiggles his eyebrows, eyes laughing at you. Not kind. Not even familiar. “Try your pockets.”</p><p>“Shut up,” you mutter, rolling off him—trying really hard not to picture anything from your mad pockets stuck up his smug arse.</p><p>“Just trying to help.”</p><p>“Shut <em>up</em>.”</p><p>You’d hit him, but he’d only go and love it.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Chapter 11</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Does it still hurt, Doctor?” His head beside yours, sharing one pillow, his body tucked behind you. That perfect fit again. “When you think about what I did? Is it still raw?”</p><p>It’s been much longer for you than for the Master, since Gallifrey. If he wasn’t burning up inside, he’d know that—sense that your relative timelines have fallen  out of step and compensate, unthinking—Time Lord instinct. You note the weakness, the opening, then close your eyes and clear your mind before you start thinking about how you can use it against him.</p><p>“I don’t think about it.” Deliberately, every second, you’re not thinking about Gallifrey. “Don’t push this.” Not if he wants to lie beside you. Not if he wants you to stop him from dying.</p><p>And that’s the rule of the interdict; he won’t push too far. Not here, today, with his hands on your body and his voice in your ear, private. The next time you meet, he’ll try to destroy you. You save up your strength (his weakness) for when you need it.</p><p>If it was just you and him, no collateral damage, you’d let him defeat you. Maybe. For a bit.</p><p>Everyone wobbles at some point, don’t they? Thinks about surrender? It’s not so long since you thought about giving up—fought off this regeneration until it was too late. But this fresh you, she fought back. You were born from the ashes of your own hope. The Master has no concept of how <em>strong</em> that makes you.</p><p>He slips his left hand into your left coat pocket.</p><p>“To never know where you came from, though,” he tries. “Your identity.”</p><p>You slap the wrist attached to the cheeky hand. There’s stuff in your pockets that you don’t need reminding you of him the next time you’re busy saving the universe.</p><p>“I know who I am.” Right now, you’re the person with a gaping wound where their point of origin should be. That’s you, who he made you, and you’ll own it. You won’t bleed for his amusement.</p><p>When he doesn’t take his hand out of your pocket, yours follows his inside and wraps around his hot fingers, holding them out of harm’s way.</p><p>The Master huffs and stops fishing.</p><p>“You’re no fun this time.”</p><p>You make a face. You are—you’re loads of fun! It’s his definition of the word that’s the problem. For a minute there, you and Missy almost found a meaning—clinical, ironic, acutely self-aware—that worked for both of you.</p><p>“I’d be more fun if you weren’t lying there dying.”</p><p>“Dying in your arms?” Heated whisper against your ear, then a laugh. A squirm against your buttocks. “Ever wanted to fuck someone while they’re regenerating? I would, honestly, but they’re usually not that into me by then.”</p><p>You pull a different face and stick your elbow hard into his ribs. He crumples around the blow, laughing with sheer delight at a petty outrage that you don’t even feel.</p><p>Regeneration? If he’s lucky. (Which he is, at least when it comes to hanging on to some form of personal existence come what may). Regeneration might purge the Cyberium, might even destroy it, but it takes strength to regenerate. Discipline. All that energy in one burst of absolute, beautiful chaos—you need the perfect lens to focus it on what you’re becoming.</p><p>For you it’s instinctive. It’s always felt like pot-luck, like bobbing for apples while you sing the body electric. It feels like drowning, pure terror, starving for your own existence, but it’s never felt impossible. More like inevitable. You had to fight <em>so</em> hard to stop it the last time. But maybe that’s just you. If it all started with you, if regeneration was a fragment stolen from your forgotten-self and the Time Lords were shaped to fit the alien blueprint of <em>you</em>, the join can’t be seamless. The focusing lens can’t be perfect. And the Master has cracked in any case.</p><p>“I won’t let you die.”</p><p>He grunts, dismissive, disinterested, cuddling up to your back and settling his cheek on the pillow. He might sleep if you stay still and quiet for a bit. You’re not good at that when someone’s in trouble, though.</p><p>Missy didn’t want to die. On her knees, she begged you for her life and your friendship, like she really had no idea that you’d come to save her anyway.</p><p>You’ve never felt that lost. Not even standing in the ruins of Gallifrey while the Master pulled the fabric of your identity out from beneath your feet. He has no idea what it would take to bring you that low, and you have no intention of ever letting him find out. Because he’d use it.</p><p>“I’ll save you.”</p><p>The Master drags you onto your back and pins you to the mattress—hands pinning your wrists, knee trapping your thigh, his rage boiling over in your face.</p><p>“Don’t you bloody <em>dare!</em>"</p>
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<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Chapter 12</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He goes to thump you across the face, backhanded. You catch his fist, his whole momentum, and push him off you, the Master spending the energy of the unlanded blow in a cry that tears a gulf between your hearts. Forcing the struggling hand down, you pin it beside his face—grab for the other one and do the same, your righteousness subsuming his fury.</p><p>“No,” you tell him. Just that. That’s the voice that’s stopped armies. This is <em>not</em> happening.</p><p>The Master is too far gone to melt into your reality. He struggles, thrashing beneath you, fighting mostly himself, the empty air, the soulless silver inside him—the bloody universe itself.</p><p>You tighten your grip around his hands and press a warning knee against his balls.</p><p>“Stop it.” You rock your weight, shaking him, shaking the bed. “Here and now, with me, just <em>stop it</em>". You aren’t begging.</p><p>He’s given you a hundred answers to that over the lifetimes you’ve shared. You almost never tame the rage in him, often don’t even reach him, but here and now the Master yields. He stops struggling, stops resisting your weight so that you sag suddenly over him, caught unawares, shifting yourself just in time to avoid removing one of the better options from your immediate futures by crushing his scrotum with your kneecap.</p><p>“Stop me,” the Master whispers. He’s begging. Tears in his eyes. They fall when he turns his head on the pillow, unable to look you in the eye a second longer. “I can’t.”</p>
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<a name="section0013"><h2>13. Chapter 13</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Leaning down, you catch his lips with a kiss. It’s a soft, slow invitation, and a promise. You do your best to put everything you can never say into it, plus a few things you can’t admit even to yourself. They all add up to the same reality—that you’ll spare him, save him, cherish him and protect him just as long as he leaves you a way open to this; that you’ll be in his sphere and, when the stars align, if you both squint just right, in his arms. Only if he doesn’t court you with devastation. There are limits.</p><p>“Master.” You let him feel your lips on his, shaping the vibration of his name. He’ll drag it out of you sometimes for twisted kicks, but you hardly ever just say it—a loaded word in any language, a title for tyrants. It does mean more in your own tongue, though. Layers in your language, of history unfolding as linear time, of the shape and psychic mass of a thing bound to the handful of dimensions perceptible to your senses. Before him, on Gallifrey, the word meant ‘teacher’. ‘Adept’. A specific flavour of genius in the mastery of a single academic discipline. A name to live up to for a lifetime, like ‘Doctor’.</p><p>You both knew plenty of other languages when you chose your names.</p><p>The Master’s eyes are open. He watches you, waiting to see what you’ll do with his profession of weakness. It’s as if he doesn’t recognise you. Maybe that’s at the heart of it—his terrible vengeance against your race. He can always find something to fear. Is he scared that you aren’t you anymore?</p><p>“Look at me.” Gently, you rest your forehead against his, eyes closed. “Look properly. You want to know what you’ve done to me? Look.” Still holding his hands captive, you tighten yours. He’s burning, a clammy wreck working himself up to the cusp of a messy regeneration, too stubborn to stop drinking the poison that’s killing him. You land an awkward, impetuous kiss on his forehead, offering your mind with it. “Please look.”</p><p>You release his hands. Curl yourself tighter over him, sliding your palms over his skin, his arms, his chest—upwards to his neck. Even like this, you want him. You open your mind and let him see the longing.</p><p>The Master pushes your coat from your shoulders—rough hands demanding that you contort and wriggle until he’s pushed the cloth away, else he’s going to tear it off you, and you love that coat. You hear it land on the floor, then he drags up the back of your shirt and pushes both hands under to lie flat against your back. The little conquest pleases him, his body tensing beneath you, breath coming quick and shallow. So’s yours.</p><p>Just when he has you distracted by the physical, he answers your invitation and reaches into your mind. You gasp, and he kisses you—catches the moment, grabs the back of your head and pulls you down to mash your mouths together in blind lust. You should’ve known he wouldn’t have this on your terms. For a moment you resist—no way you’re letting his AI passenger have a look inside your head—but he’s in control. Of course he is. These are his gifts, second nature to him before you even discovered ability of your own. He’ll keep you safe... or destroy you himself. No middle gears.</p><p>The thought is shared. His grin swallows up the kiss, dragging it wetly across your cheek when you turn your head aside in mute protest. He guides you back into position, fingers fanning out and burrowing under your hair, finding every perfect pressure point. He sinks into your mind and does what you asked.</p><p>He <em>looks</em> at you.</p><p>No words. Touch—mouths together, moving urgently, tongues playing at something not too much like warfare. Scent and taste—familiarity, difference, pheromones indicating your absolute physical compatibility. Sight—a flicker of blurred nearness as you both close your eyes so you can turn inward. Hearing—the little sounds of intimacy. Your sigh, shuddering a bit. His inarticulate, guttural grunt of approval and arousal. And thought. Not like before, when you searched out the Cyberium in his noisy head. Those touches are fragments of a conscious mind, something ordered, part of the discipline you learned as children. Almost ordinary.</p><p>This is deeper, forbidden, pulling together the threads of a lifetime of connection so the Master can see your lives from the flip side.</p><p>Two firebrand boys running barefoot down the byways of the outer Citadel, laughing and alive. Two beautiful, arrogant youths tumbling together in sunbaked red grass, desperately in love and too proud to say so. Adversaries across the timestream, sending messages that blot out stars and break your hearts. He dies in your arms on purpose, spitting contempt and victory until you howl at the universe in despair, clutching his body because it’s all you have left and you don’t know how to let him go. Missy grips your injured hand, squeezes it much too hard, and thanks you for trying, driving the last nail into your coffin. Gallifrey, dead all around you—you’re so tired of it all, but he’s not finished with you. What else can there be, what more could he do? You’re so scared. And then he destroys you, so you pick yourself up out of the dust and destroy him back by owning the truth he’s given you and spitting it in his face. But he’s made you bleed.</p><p>It’s over at the speed of thought, this unfiltered wander down memory lane. The Master pulls everything out of you, every footprint he’s ever left in your soul, then lets you go.</p><p>Nothing’s changed. You need him to see that. (Everything’s changed. He’s forced you to swallow that.)</p><p>You moan at the loss, alone inside your own mind, and try to kiss him again.</p><p>“Wow,” the Master whispers, dodging you, totally irreverent. “I just got hard. Honestly, darling, I didn’t know you cared.” Blowing out his cheeks, he fans himself with a flapping hand. But past that, underneath your body, he’s trembling. “I’m pretty good, aren’t I?”</p><p>“I’m still me,” you insist. “I’m still everything we’ve been.” Your tear splashes on his cheek. The Master brushes it away—no, he catches it, then he dabs his tongue against the pad of his middle finger and tastes it. His frown of simple scientific curiosity chokes you up. “I haven’t given up on you. How could I?” A second tear. This one lands in his beard because you bow your head.</p><p>A couple of tears you can stand to share with him—a concentrated taste of your truth. You’re not about to let him see you cry, so you kiss him instead.</p><p>It's hardly the first time.</p>
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<a name="section0014"><h2>14. Chapter 14</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Once, before there was a Time War and you found the worst part of yourself, you trusted the Master. Not with a planet, a plan, a silly machine, or the universe. Only with yourself. You knew him to be genteel, courteous, punctilious; the cold distillation of Time Lord snobbery wearing a daft little beard and a big chip on his shoulder. When you missed home (when there was a home to miss), he was a taste of what you left behind. It was a game (as long as you were the one winning).</p>
<p>Then—and you don’t know precisely when or how—it became a war. You saw a broken mind where you’d once seen a glamorous, amoral wit, and found savage cruelty where there’d once been chilly indifference. He’s still all about the beards, though. He likes you touching this one and doesn’t resort to the classic-villain chin-topiary of his misspent youth.</p>
<p>Even this is tactical—you straddling his hips, him tugging at your clothing, wanting you exposed. This is more of a dance than a game—freeform self-expression only with intricate rules that you make up as you go. Humans call this ‘making love’. You don’t know what you’re making with the Master, or what it could become. The not-knowing is half the fun. Almost always, you’re surrounded by potentials, by futures, all lurking in your peripheral vision and competing to become the primary timeline. Sometimes they crowd you so much they hurt. Not with him. Just being in physical proximity to him obliterates all that. Probably, though you’ve never asked, you have the same effect on him: both wildcards, both lynchpins.</p>
<p>How is the universe getting on without you? It’d be awkward, explaining, if somewhere got conquered while you were having your trousers pulled down.</p>
<p>The Master slaps your bare backside smartly with the flat of his hand. You focus. He isn’t laughing.</p>
<p>“Am I keeping you from a more pressing engagement?”</p>
<p>“Probably. I’m here, aren’t I?” You look down, pointedly, at where your bodies meet in a tangle of distressed tailoring and half-exposed skin. “I’m not going anywhere.”</p>
<p>“Promise?” His broad palm strokes over the sting it just left. His voice is gruff, his eyes deep pools of reluctance. Resentment. He hates himself for even asking. It touches you, tugging at your hearts.</p>
<p>“Yes,” you say, simply. Softly. For once you’re sure you mean it. “I promise.”</p>
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<a name="section0015"><h2>15. Chapter 15</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>At last, he kisses you gently, rewarding your promise with a calculated moment of tenderness. He knows how to win your hearts. It’s just that, usually, he doesn’t care any more. You whimper as the ghost of his affection embraces your thoughts, your limbs going all weak from how good it feels. Your elbows give out, your arms sag so you’re lying on top of him, and the Master smiles. Not his wicked grin, all teeth and cruelty. Just a smile because this pleases him—your need, your body, his...</p><p>His what? You don’t even know what this is for him. But his hands on your bare back feel so good. His empathic caress is an invitation you’re unable to resist, so you reach back and let him have your pleasure, your deep, slow bodily arousal, and your promise.</p><p>The Master groans into your mouth and arches his body beneath you, jabbing your wet thighs with his stiff cock. Subsiding, pawing impatiently at the last of your mangled clothing, he murmurs, “Fuck me,” against your trembling lips.</p><p>Just this once, yes—you’ll obey him.</p>
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<a name="section0016"><h2>16. Chapter 16</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>You savour his inches, slowly, and make him share every sensation with you. Takes his breath away because you’ve startled him, so while he’s gasping, you finish the job—sit back on your heels, on his cock, and rake your fingertips down his chest. He almost finishes there and then, just from seeing how much you want him.</p><p>“Hang on in there,” you urge, letting your head fall back. The ends of your hair—soft hair this time, long and fair—tickle your shoulder blades. It’s a slight sensation on top of the rest, with him filling you up and willing you to make it count, but you share it with him anyway—that insignificant tickle.</p><p>“Shit,” he whispers, and struggles beneath you, bringing one knee up behind your buttocks so he can plant a heel into the mattress and strain for some shred of self-control. Hands running up your back, fingers finding the ends of your hair and catching that tickle—feeding it back to you through the filter of his lust. He really is on the edge, but this is yours, and you aren’t hurrying. “Get on with it!”</p><p>
  <em>Are you asking?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I’ll serenade you with a fucking red rose clamped between my teeth if you like, just...</em>
</p><p>You move your hips to find that delicious slip-slide; you need a slow ride, not another multiple-collision like in the console room. That’s fun—this is bliss, building in soft waves to sharp peaks of <em>yes, yes, yes</em>.</p><p>Not quite enough, though.</p><p>“Touch me?”</p><p>
  <em>Seriously? I’m ready to blow here.</em>
</p><p>You choose this moment to straighten up and show him your current smile. There’s no-one else who’s seen it.</p><p>The Master slams both fists down against the mattress, growling through gritted teeth, but then he nods and brings his hands up, following their progress with his eyes, as if he’s incapable of trusting them to do his will unsupervised. He grips you by the waist, roughly tugging to shift your angle and then planting his fist down between your bodies, right where you’ll bump into it each time you rock your weight forwards. With the other hand, he grabs your nipple and twists. Your focus splits—breast, clitoris and g-spot (not that it’s a spot, more of a zone, more like it’s filling the entire universe right now, and it’s tied into the empathic mating dance you’re currently doing with a madman’s mind).</p><p>Your gasp fills the room, your body clenching greedily around his cock. The Master extends two fingers, catching your clit on slippery rails, letting you drive yourself to distraction no matter how you move.</p><p>
  <em>Now see how long you last.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I want it to last.</em>
</p><p>“Hard luck, love. You’re too easy.”</p><p>His voice is the last straw.</p><p>You come. You don’t mean to, it just sort of happens—a screaming cascade of, ‘fuck yes!’ starting at your clitoris and roaring up inside you until every nerve-ending ignites, until you can’t plunge him deep enough to quench you, and he’s won, and you love it.</p><p>You love...</p><p>The Master rolls you onto your back, still hard and deep inside you. Eyes glazed from your orgasm, he’s panting in time with you, living every last squeezed-out drop of it with you.</p><p>You’re never more receptive than this. All the right chemical messengers released into your bloodstream, pumping adrenalin through your hearts. Compatible pheromones, so delicious. His thoughts and yours blend into one, dissolving in the biological catalyst, and if you let it, it’ll mark you both for keeps.</p><p>“What do you say?” Fidgeting himself a better angle, he thrusts hard, jolting you. You finger his face, transfixed, transported; brushing at his fever with your cool fingers then catching curled fingertips in his short beard, electrified by the contrast of textures. He has fire in his eyes, breathlessly burning for you. “For better, for worse? Shall we whore our souls to one another in one base, procreative act?” He thrusts again, grunting with effort. The shared sensation hooks into your memories and pulls on your past, the multiple selves with the right anatomy to remember precisely how it feels to have a cock that’s full of incredible <em>almost</em>. Again. Again. Ungentle, but not unkind. This is how he pleasures himself, this time—all rapid-fire, all sensation, without a shred of reverence. He wants to do this to you forever. “Bonding. You and me. There’s one for the bucket list.” One more triumphant shove and he’s done, melting, losing himself in you while your body feebly echoes his epic orgasm—hard and sharp pulsing at your clit which he catches with his fingers, moaning into your mouth when you come for real in his hand, indifferent to whose pleasure is which.</p><p>“Fuck,” you manage (not a squeak—absolutely not), wrapping your arms and legs around him and following him into hell. <em>Don’t stop.</em></p>
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<a name="section0017"><h2>17. Chapter 17</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sometime later—some lost time—you’re sensible to the greedy flick of his tongue between your legs, the sheer heat of his mouth on oversensitized flesh.</p><p>“You’re burning up,” you slur, groping for him and getting hold of his head on the second go. “You’re hotter than a human.”</p><p>
  <em>Watch your mouth when I’m eating your cunt.</em>
</p><p>“Did we pass out?”</p><p>
  <em>No.</em>
</p><p>You remember... nothing. A present nothing, neutral, unthreatening. Restful. He was there. It was nice.</p><p>“Did we...”</p><p><em>No.</em> Bored with the chit-chat, he lifts his head and eyes you from between your own thighs. You glisten on his lips, the tip of his nose, in his beard. Silver rages in his eyes. “Turns out, the Cyberium isn’t much for sharing.”</p><p>One mind, one flesh. You and the Master. Imagine the domestics.</p><p>“Probably for the best.”</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>You swallow, not sure where to start interpreting the mixed messages your body is sending. Later, you’ll panic. Maybe hate yourself for a bit, because,</p><p>“Almost, though.” Regret. Yours. Just yours, all alone. His mind is suddenly a sheer wall of mercury mirror-glass, reflecting you back at yourself.</p><p>He stares at you. Through you. Absentmindedly wipes his face on his forearm. “Would you have?”</p><p>Deep breath. (Time to be the Doctor, if you can remember how.)</p><p>“No.”</p><p>“Good.” Pushing your legs wider apart, the Master slots three brusque fingers up you and sucks angrily on your swollen clit until you scream his name.</p><p>Feels like the least you can do.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0018"><h2>18. Chapter 18</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Aftermath. You’ve seen battles and what comes next. Hell of a mess. Bodies lying where they fell. This isn’t so different.</p><p>The Master invents star-charts on your skin, joining up the battle-wounds with a slow-moving fingertip. He’s rapt, still, silent, almost peaceful, so you let him marvel at what he’s done to you, joining teeth-marks to pinch-bruises with invisible lines of private meaning.</p><p>The love-bite at your neck he saves ’til last—kisses you there, sweet and hesitant, like he hardly dares, then lays his head on your shoulder and snuggles up against your side, sunburn-hot, and lets himself sleep.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0019"><h2>19. Chapter 19</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Now what?</p><p>Usually, you don’t get time to worry about it. You never say goodbye when you leave because it makes him angry and petulant. He never says it when he leaves because you wish he would. But you woke up from an hour’s sleep and he’s still here, a restless twist in the bedclothes to your left, fighting battles in his dreams. He’s lying on his front, face turned away from you, both hands clawing at the pillow, the sheet clinging to the sweat of his back.</p><p>Maybe he wants to die—really, properly, the way you did not so long ago. Do it here, with you, because there’s no-one else.</p><p>You’d only need to stretch out your hand and someone, <em>someone</em>, would grasp it. Even a stranger. You’d take that—any kind stranger willing to stand witness to your passing. But that’s not for the Master. There’s no-one he’d find worthy of the moment except you. No confession dial. He’d have it up-close and personal, so it hurts you.</p><p>
  <em>Is that why you’re here? So I have to watch you die?</em>
</p><p>For a second, the Master stops breathing, frozen on a stuttering inhalation, and your blood runs cold. No guarantees with regeneration. Not if you’ve messed things up badly enough, which he has. You place your hand between his shoulders, holding your own breath until the Master exhales and then draws another breath. Another. Then another. Beneath your hand, life.</p><p>He’s deeply under, too exhausted to keep himself at the level of refreshing rest. You skim the contours of his dreaming mind, shutting out the images. You move your hand to the back of his head, spreading your fingertips against his damp scalp, and lean over his sleeping body.</p><p>There’s still a way in. What you (almost) did earlier left a chemical stew in your veins, all psychic defences flaccid and open to one another. Later, you’ll regret not following through with it like the hangover from hell, but for now, you can use it. You can reach in and find the exact path you took when he first got here; see the Cyberium, still howling inside the jagged prison of the Master’s will. The creature is beyond reason, or you’d try reasoning with it. The Master has compressed it, starved it, stripped it to steal every usable scrap of knowledge, then done god-knows-what else to break the AI from the foundation of its logic. It’s met its match, and it’s well aware, but it’s not programmed for capitulation. It knows about terror, though.</p><p>“Stop hurting him.” The sound of your physical voice startles you. The quietness of your rage. “I can’t drag you out of there, but if you destroy him—if you even <em>survive</em> that—<em>I’ll</em> be waiting for you.”</p><p>It retreats, molten silver pulling in on itself in a defensive cringe. The Master cries out, curling into the foetal position with both fists clenched in front of his face.</p><p>You come<em> this</em> close to destroying it, just for that.</p><p>You <em>could</em> drag it out of him. Or terrorise it until it leaves the Master’s body of its own accord. You’d win that battle if you were fighting it for <em>him</em>. But you can taste that future, just the glimmer of a warning that those consequences are too vast, even for you; that the Master couldn’t stand the burden of owing you his life (again). And you know, anyway, that the interdict has to be absolute. If you violate that unspoken permission to get your own way—either of you—there’s no coming back, ever.</p><p>You need there to be a way back.</p><p>Slowing your breathing, pulling yourself back from the brink, you let the Cyberium get one good, long look at you. All of you. Everything. It thought it knew you from one glimpse, years ago, but a lot’s happened to you since that cyber-abomination tasted your mind. A <em>lot</em>. It screams back at you, knowing that there’s nowhere it can hide.</p><p><em>Fight for him</em>, you command it. <em>Else I will</em>.</p><p>Stirring, the Master squints irritably over his shoulder at you.</p><p>“Fuck off,” he mutters. You take your hand away.</p><p>“Just having a quiet word with your new best mate.”</p><p>“In my <em>head</em>, though.”</p><p>“That’s where you left it.”</p><p>“I feel sick. What’ve you done to it?” Grimacing, licking dry lips, he’s curious, not angry. You didn’t cross the line. Almost, maybe, but you didn’t.</p><p>“Just had a word. Bit of unfinished business. Personal stuff, you know.”</p><p>He snorts, nodding sarcastic recognition. He knows what it’s like to be on the receiving end of... of <em>you</em>.</p><p>“I thought you might kill it.” Another swallow, flopping back to the pillow. He really does look queasy. Haggard—a youthful face stained by weary struggle and neverending pain, with his mask fallen to fatigue and (maybe, do you think?) a shred of trust in you. “Do a murder inside my actual head.” He smiles a phantom of his childish smile.</p><p>“One for the bucket list?” You’ll do it. Just let him ask. Please, please, let him just ask you to save him. “Do you want it gone?”</p><p>“No.” The lie stiffens his entire body. He presses his lips together, pressing his fist to his lips, swallowing his turmoil. Eyes screwed shut, shaking. You sit on your heels and wait for him, too scared to do anything else in case you break the moment. When he can speak again, he’s so hushed that it sounds almost tender. “Don’t you bloody dare.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0020"><h2>20. Chapter 20</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Normal things. Your life doesn’t have many of those. You’re practically allergic to them—you’ve spent whole regenerations running away from them. But you have a body that needs looking after and a routine that minimises how long you have to waste doing it. Shower. Clothes. Food, if you’re hungry, which you aren’t.</p>
<p>Mind raw, body aching—a vicious cycle of well-earned biological and metaphysical regret. You and the Master... That wasn’t the first time you danced with the ultimate commitment, but usually one of you knows better in the nick of time, or you’re just flirting with the idea to start with. You both get off on the risk, playing psychic chicken and seeing who’ll swerve first. Who can out-reckless who? The Gallifreyan opposite of safe-sex. It’s never gone that far before. Not even close.</p>
<p>“Almost.” You scald your hand on the kettle. “Ow.” You usually like the sound of your voice—talk to ground yourself, to reassure, to think, or just to hear someone clever. This morning (and it is morning, outside the doors), you sound like an embarrassed cringe and want yourself to shut up.</p>
<p>Saved from your own stupidity by the Cyberium? You’re never living that down.</p>
<p>You feel the razor edges of unspecified panic—the need for a plan, so you’re not blundering ahead, blindly. Your strategy all ran out when you woke up and found the Master was still here. This isn’t how it goes when one of you triggers the interdict. You don’t push your luck once you get it out of your systems... but it isn’t like that’s a <em>rule</em>, is it? He can stay if he wants. If he’s not done yet, or because the bed is comfy, because he’s lonely, because he’s ill, or because he’s cruel. There’s no actual rule.</p>
<p>You’ve managed to get a cup of tea in front of you before your phone rings—Yaz’s name on the screen. When you let the call ring out, she sends a text instead. ‘The Tardis is going mental. Are you in there?’ Two minutes later, while you’re still staring blankly at the phone, another message: ‘Are you OK?’</p>
<p>Picture this from the outside: the TARDIS, groaning on the bite-point between now and nowhere, where the Master left her. The forcefield bubble keeping anyone from getting too close to the outer shell. And the beacon, projecting mortal dread into anyone who gets within half a mile.</p>
<p>You know Yaz. She’ll be right outside the forcefield, shaking off the faux-terror because she thinks you might need help.</p>
<p>‘It’s fine. Don’t worry. See you soon. Kiss kiss Doctor.’ Critically, you re-read the message. Convincing? What do humans put when they—politely, with love, but seriously <em>right now</em>—wish other humans would go away for a bit? You start another message. ‘I brought someone back here. Shh.’ There’s a glowing blush emoji that’s probably cute, so you add that and hit send.</p>
<p>Seconds later, the phone vibrates in your hand. Yaz: ‘OMG sorry bye’. Thumbs-up emoji.</p>
<p>You smile because it’s Yaz, and then you stop.</p>
<p>Texting. It might as well have been invented for lying to your mates without having to look them in the eye.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0021"><h2>21. Chapter 21</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Master wanders into the console room to find his shoes. You’re not clearing up after anyone, so his stuff is all where it fell during the first collision. You pretend not to notice the knowing smile plastered all over him as he stoops to reclaim his socks, waistcoat, coat, and half the contents of one pocket that’s spilled down the steps.</p><p>This you—she can’t do nonchalant, even when you really need it. Comes out all stiff and awkward with a side of needy. There’s plenty on the console to keep your hands busy, but you have to duck your head to hide your face before you ask, “You off, then?”</p><p>He finishes shrugging on his coat and comes over, unhurried, still clutching his shoes and socks.</p><p>“Kicking me out?”</p><p>“No. It’s your visit.”</p><p>The Master nods, processing that. You don’t remember either of you putting it in so many words before, but that’s a rule, sort of. Whichever one of you initiates the interdict is the one to end it once they’ve got what they wanted. You still don’t know what the Master wants, this time.</p><p>“Look at me.” The commanding voice only makes you roll your eyes, bent over the console and private behind a curtain of tickly hair. “I said, <em>look at me</em>.” The force of his will, hooking into your consciousness and trying to drag you upright when you disobey mere words.</p><p>“Don’t start all that.” You brush him off (too easily), annoyed. He’ll be telling you to ‘kneel’, next. In this scenario, you’re only going down on your knees for one reason, and not while your aching head is half-killing you and you can’t even face breakfast. But you do straighten up and face him.</p><p>He looks worse than you feel, but he’s made an effort; cleaned himself up, styled his wet hair, tucked in his shirt. He’s more himself with all the layers back in place, but there’s a greyish tinge to his skin and his dark eyes are sunken, reddened, glassy and wild.</p><p>“If you’re staying, get to sickbay. Let her have a good look at you.” It’s not a command. You don’t back it up with the projection of your will. It’s just grumpy and grudging, raw with mistrust and not even half-hiding how worried you are. “Last time anyone regenerated in here, she had to redecorate.”</p><p>“Sorry I missed that.” He grins—boyish, genuine. Too beautiful. It’s not fair. He can snap in a second and be ugly again—grab you, choke you, spit hatred in your face, <em>destroy</em> you, but he can still be this too. It’s just... not fair. “Ask me.”</p><p>“What?” It takes you a moment to see his meaning through your misery.</p><p>The Master comes right up to the console, facing you across the barrier. You scowl when he dumps his stuff on there.</p><p>“Ask me,” he presses. “That’s what people do when they want something. Or so I’m told.” He closes his eyes, pursing his lips, sorting himself out with slow breaths before he snaps. He’d rather be punishing you, but he can defer the moment, if he tries very, very hard. When he opens his eyes again, you’re looking into an abyss. “Ask. Me.”</p><p>Indignation bunches up your shoulders. You look daggers at him, but he’s immune to cuts. This brittle moment—all those possible futures obscured by having him stand close to you. How often have you stood here knowing what power lies in your hands? How often have you run away? Your pride smarts, hot and revealing like that glowing blush emoji on your phone. You can feel your heels digging in, giving you traction on a future-path where the Master isn’t there spreading his chaos and killing you piece by piece. One where he has peace at last, and you’re left with... nothing.</p><p>“Please.” You take deep breaths of your own, fighting yourself. The Master waits, leaning on your console, mildly curious as to whether he’ll live or die. “Please, fight this. Here with me or anywhere you want. If I get one chance, this is me taking it. Please, let’s find a way to get that <em>thing</em> out of you before it’s too late.” After a shaky start, the words come all in a rush, unfiltered, without you needing to try.</p><p>You’ve handed him the weapon—your weakness, your need. It’s almost peaceful knowing that there’s nothing you can do except wait and see what the Master chooses to do with it. Break you. Join you. Throw you this one, grudging concession. He might kill you where you stand.</p><p>Silent, the Master comes to your side. He trails provocative fingers over every switch and dial as he skirts the console, his eyes lowered in sober thought. You can feel him weighing the option of dying to spite you, just to see the pain in your eyes (again). But he’s not making the kneejerk choice (damn you, and to hell with it all). He’s thinking about your words—a scholarly assessment of the pros and cons.</p><p>Hope. It hurts so, so much. But when did that ever stop you?</p><p>He comes too close—sort of catches your upper arm with both sets of fingertips, plucking at your coat sleeve.</p><p>“Hm. What do we call it, then? Enemies-with-benefits? Friends-with-violence? A holiday?”</p><p><em>Respite</em> is all you can think as hope triggers relief. <em>Release. Oh, please. Please. Give me this. Just for a bit.</em></p><p>“Time-out,” you whisper. You open your hand, needing, just as the Master drops both of his and catches hold of your fingers. Hard to say who squeezes harder, who leaves more bruises.</p><p>“Sickbay, then?” He’s much better at masks than you are. Bright, brisk voice, as if he couldn’t care less.</p><p>You don’t even pretend—just turn your head and let him see you impaled on your own regrets, on everything he’s done to you.</p><p>“In a minute?”</p><p>The Master swallows, lips parted on an indrawn breath. He finds your pain beautiful. Always has.</p><p><em>Go on then. Destroy me</em>, you think, carefully handing him every fragile word. Daring him.</p><p>He smirks. It’s soft, almost, just before you both lean in.</p><p><em>No.</em> Not today. He shuts his eyes and covers your lips with his. You share a kiss so uncomplicated that it’s cruel. <em>Shan’t.</em></p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>END</strong>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>
  <strong>Transformative Works Statement (a work in progress itself)</strong>
</p><p><strong>My Written Words: Very Limited Permission!</strong><br/>Reuse/redistribute/republish/archive/publish/translate/record my words for an audience? You need my <strong>written permission</strong> for anything more than short, fair-use excerpts, as would be appropriate to academic or media publications (think book reviews, literary citations, one-liners). Taking my words anyway then expecting me to consent afterwards because it's a done-deal is ugly, and has happened more times than I can live with already. It's not flattering: it's soul-destroyingly disrespectful. Don't do it. If you want to do something <strong>privately</strong> for your own use, or with a couple of friends, that's none of my business. Just make sure it stays private and small-scale.</p><p><strong>Your Own Fanworks: Enjoy!</strong><br/>Anything you can create from scratch yourself <strong>based</strong> on my works/ideas/characters/worldbuilding/etc? Fine with me as long as you aren't making money from it. You may reproduce appropriate, limited sections of my written <span class="u">dialogue</span> if your fanwork strictly needs it - for example, your remix of a specific scene based around the same script. No need to credit/link your source/inspiration if you don't want to, but I recommend covering your butt by linking to this Statement at least.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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